The present invention relates to a document management system, and in particular, to a method of and an apparatus for displaying document management information as a set of elements including a plurality of documents and a plurality of programs, for example, version information of each element and configuration information of a set thereof and a computer-readable recording medium on which a program for displaying version and configuration information is recorded.
To manage a large volume of documents of a firm in a concentrated manner for efficient use thereof, there has been an increasing need of a document management system in which documents can be stored in a storage to be retrieved and read therefrom. Additionally, for example, to write documents for a large number of manuals and to develop programs, namely, for collaborative job which cannot be achieved by one person but by a plurality of people through a collaborative job, there has been a tendency of effectively utilizing the system above.
In such a collaborative job, in addition to management of versions of respective documents and programs, the persons concerned are required to collaboratively proceed the job while collaboratively managing the state and condition of writing documents. Consequently, in the document management system employed in the collaborative job, there are essentially required a version management function and a configuration management function.
In this connection, "version management" indicates management of information items such as a version number of a document or a program source and a creation date of each version such that when a user edits and updates documents and program sources, it is possible to store and to retrieve any version of documents and program sources.
Consequently, a list of version information can be displayed to restore a version of a document at an arbitrary point in the past or to obtain a process of editing operations in the past. Moreover, for an efficient editing operation, it is possible to extract and display differences between the versions.
In addition, "configuration management" means that files or objects in which documents and/or program sources are stored are gathered into sets of related elements for the management thereof. The elements may be constituent elements of documents and programs.
A set of these elements is called a project in some cases. For example, when editing a manual of a product in a file for each chapter, if relationships between the files are managed in the form of configuration information of a project "product manual", the related files can be gathered into a document when necessary.
Moreover, in a case of development of an application program, when relationships between the program sources and object files of respective modules are managed in the form of configuration information of a project "application program", it is possible, for example, to compile related files at a time.
In a document management system having the version and configuration management functions, when the user conducts operation to refer to version information for restoration of versions at an arbitrary point in the past, to know an editing process in the past, and to extract and display differences between versions, it is necessary for the system to present the version information to the user.
Additionally, when a user carries out operation to refer to configuration information to gather related document files into a document and to collect related program sources for compilation thereof, the system is required to present the configuration information to the user.
Furthermore, when the user desires to know information of the editing operation conducted in the past for documents and program sources of a project and information of relationships between versions of constituent elements, it is necessary to clearly present information in which version information is combined with configuration information. This is a function particularly required in a collaborative job such as a collaborative writing of documents and a collaborative development of programs.
In this situation, version information and configuration information are displayed by use of a tree structure in the conventional document management system or the like as shown in FIG. 5. For example, PVCS Version manager (http://www.intersolv.co.jp/PVCS/main/Function/Vm.htm) of INTERSOLV discloses a technology in which program versions are managed to display source names of each program and versions thereof in a tree structure.
In a display of FIG. 5, there is presented a combination of version information shown in FIG. 6 and configuration information shown in FIG. 7. But, FIGS. 6 and 7 are not admitted as prior art.
In FIG. 7, 701 indicates a name of a project as an object of management and 702 denotes constituent elements of the project. Configuration information includes a file name 704 and the like corresponding to a constituent element name 703, and the example of FIG. 7 indicates that Project "Product XX Manual" has constituent elements "Contents", "Chapter 1", "Chapter 2", and "FIG. 1."
In FIG. 6, 601 to 604 indicate version information items respectively corresponding to constituent elements of "Product XX Manual". Each version information includes a version name 605, a creator or writer of the version 606, a creation date thereof 607, etc., and FIG. 6 expresses, for example, that "Contents" include two versions of V1 and V2 (601).
FIG. 5 includes a root node of tree 501 indicating the displayed project. A sub-node 502 thereof denotes a constituent element of the project. Furthermore, a sub-node 503 of the element indicates a list of versions of respective constituent elements.
As above, information in which version information is combined with configuration information is displayed in a tree structure. Consequently, the user can recognize documents and program source names of the pertinent project as well as versions thereof.
However, the method of displaying version information and configuration information in accordance with the conventional document management system is attended with the following problems.
A first problem will be now described.
In the restoration of a document at a point of time in the past in FIG. 5, assume an example of a case in which "Chapter 1" is restored for a point of time of Dec. 4, 1997.
In the conventional display method using the tree structure, there is provided a graphic user interface (GUI) as shown in FIG. 8 to obtain information of a creation date or the like of each version. That is, by pointing an arbitrary constituent element of a document, there is displayed a list of version information thereof.
In FIG. 8, version information 802 is displayed for "Chapter 1". Namely, it is only necessary to restore the document of V2 by referring to the information.
However, to restore "Contents" for Dec. 4, 1997 on which "Chapter 1" was of V2, there is required a comparison of the creation date by referring to version information of "Contents" in this case. That is, when only the display method of FIG. 5 is used, it cannot be known that which one of the versions of "Contents" was used for each version of "Chapter 1".
As above, in the conventional display method, it is not possible to recognize a relationship in time between constituent elements, i.e., how these mutually related elements were edited. Therefore, it is difficult for the user to conduct operation for the restoration of the elements of a project into documents at a point of time in the past.
Description will now be given of a second problem.
Assume an example of a case in which as a constituent element of a project, there is specified not only a document or a source file but also a particular version name of the element.
This is effective, for example, in a case of management in which when a project has a version and a product manual includes several documents as its constituent elements, a first version of product manual includes the constituent elements of a version and a second version thereof includes the elements of another version.
FIG. 9 is an example in which there is specified, in addition to the configuration information of FIG. 7, a particular version name of the constituent element.
FIG. 9 shows configuration information 901 of "first version" and configuration information 903 of "second version" of "Product XX Manual". Each information includes a version name (902, 904) for each element in addition to a constituent element name 703 and a file name 704 associated therewith. In short, 901 indicates that "first version" of "Product XX Manual" includes V1 of "Contents", V1 of "Chapter 1", V2 of "Chapter 2", and V1 of "FIG. 1" and 903 indicates that "second version" of "Product XX Manual" includes V2 of "Contents", V4 of "Chapter 1", V2 of "Chapter 2", and V3 of "FIG. 1".
Configuration information of FIG. 9 is displayed in a tree structure, for example, as shown in FIG. 10.
In FIG. 10, a root node of tree 1001 represents a project. A sub-node 1002 thereof indicates a constituent element of the project and a sub-node 1003 of the element denotes a version name corresponding to each element.
However, in the display method above, although it is possible to know a version corresponding to each constituent element, the user cannot obtain, for example, how the version is edited before and/or after a particular point of time.
For example, "Contents" of "first version" of "Product XX Manual" is of V1 in the example of FIG. 10. However, there cannot be attained information of whether or not the Contents are edited thereafter and hence the position or the like of the version of the project cannot be known. That is, there exists a problem that information about versions of constituent elements of a project and historical information of editing of each version from another version cannot be obtained.
It is therefore an object of the present invention, which copes with the problems above, to provide a method of displaying version information and configuration information in which information of combination of version information and configuration information is clearly presented to the user such that the user refers to version information of documents and program sources of a project to easily restore versions of all elements of the project at an arbitrary point of time in the past and to easily obtain an editing process of each version in the past.
To achieve the object above, in accordance with one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a version and configuration information display method for use with a document management system including a processor, a storage, and a terminal unit for managing version information of documents, program sources, etc. and configuration information including a plurality of documents, a plurality of program sources, etc., including the steps of storing, each time a document, a program source, and the like is edited, version information including a version name thereof, a creation date thereof, and the like in the storage; storing configuration information of a project in a set of a plurality of documents, a plurality of program sources, and the like in the storage; and reading the version information and the configuration information of the project from the storage, placing and displaying information of constituent elements of a project including documents, program sources, and the like on a screen of the terminal unit in a vertical direction, and placing and displaying version information of each of the constituent elements thereon by using the creation date as a reference in a horizontal direction.
Moreover, the display step uses, in place of the creation date, a version of a project as the reference.
Additionally, the display step includes, in place of the step of placing and displaying information of constituent elements of a project including documents, program sources, etc. in a vertical direction, the step of placing and displaying information of constituent elements of a project including documents, program sources, etc. in a tree structure in a vertical direction in accordance with a hierarchical relationship between the constituent elements.
The display includes the step of storing, in the storage, job management information for inspection of a state of writing an entire project and documents as its elements and a state of developing program sources. The display step reads the job management information from the storage and places and displays the job management information on the screen of the terminal unit.